Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is a peer-to-peer electronic cash system designed to serve as a robust global currency, characterized by rapid transactions, minimal fees, enhanced privacy, and larger block sizes. Functioning as a permissionless and decentralized cryptocurrency, Bitcoin Cash operates without the need for trusted intermediaries. Bitcoin Cash was developed as an alternative to the original and most valuable cryptocurrency, Bitcoin (BTC). In 2017, developers behind BCH altered the BTC code, producing their own software version and a fully developed competing product, which resulted in the bifurcation of Bitcoin into two blockchains: Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash. This development was a consequence of a hard fork in response to disagreements within the community concerning Bitcoin's scalability and the SegWit upgrade. Additionally, another hard fork occurred in the fall of 2018, leading to the further division of Bitcoin Cash into two factions: Bitcoin ABC and Bitcoin SV. The scaling debate was marked by two opposing viewpoints: proponents of smaller blocks resisted increasing block sizes, fearing it would centralize the blockchain and render it vulnerable by making it more challenging to host full nodes. Conversely, advocates of larger blocks supported an expedited solution, worried that escalating transaction fees could impede growth.

In 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto, the anonymous creator of Bitcoin, published the whitepaper titled “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System.” The first Bitcoin software, powering the blockchain, was launched in 2009. For several years, transaction fees remained low, and the processes were reliable. However, by 2016, the rising popularity of Bitcoin led to an increase in the number of transactions on its network, resulting in slower processing times and higher fees. To address this, mining hardware manufacturer Bitmain proposed a hard fork to increase the block size limit, allowing more transactions per block. This proposal was implemented on August 1, 2017, and led to the creation of Bitcoin Cash. It received backing from certain members of the Bitcoin community, including Roger Ver. Since its inception, Bitcoin Cash has faced various challenges and milestones. A significant event occurred in November 2018, when another hard fork resulted in the creation of Bitcoin SV (BSV), a separate cryptocurrency. This division arose from disagreements within the Bitcoin Cash community over proposed protocol changes. Consequently, two competing implementations emerged: Bitcoin ABC and Bitcoin SV. Bitcoin ABC continued as Bitcoin Cash, while Bitcoin SV became its own distinct cryptocurrency.

Bitcoin Cash (BCH) offers faster processing speeds and lower transaction fees due to its larger block size. Additionally, Bitcoin Cash supports smart contracts and a range of applications within its ecosystem. With a capped total supply of 21 million coins, Bitcoin Cash is demonstrably scarce and can be spent as easily as physical currency. Transactions are processed quickly, with fees generally less than a tenth of a cent. Bitcoin Cash has a variety of applications. Beyond facilitating peer-to-peer payments between individuals, it can be utilized to pay participating merchants for both in-store and online goods and services. Its low fees support emerging micro-transaction economies, enabling activities like tipping content creators and compensating app users with small amounts. Bitcoin Cash also helps lower costs and expedite settlement times for remittances and international trade. Additional applications include token creation, simplified smart contracts, and private transactions using tools such as CashShuffle and CashFusion.

Bitcoin Cash is regarded by certain supporters as the true continuation of Satoshi Nakamoto's vision for Bitcoin as a peer-to-peer electronic cash system. All Bitcoin holders at the time of the fork (block 478,558) automatically became owners of Bitcoin Cash. From a technical standpoint, Bitcoin Cash closely resembles the Bitcoin algorithm. Specifically, both projects have a hard cap of 21 million coins and utilize the Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus framework and nodes to verify transactions. In contrast to Bitcoin (BTC), Bitcoin Cash is designed to scale to fulfill the demands of a global payment system. During the split, Bitcoin Cash increased its block size from 1MB to 8MB. The enlarged block size allows Bitcoin Cash to handle a significantly higher number of transactions per second (TPS) while maintaining extremely low fees, addressing the issues of payment delays and high fees experienced by some users on the Bitcoin BTC network. As of 2023, Bitcoin Cash has a block size of 32MB, compared to Bitcoin's block size of 1MB.

Similar to Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash utilizes a Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus mechanism. In this system, miners are responsible for solving computationally intensive puzzles to validate transactions and generate new blocks.

Mining is the process through which new Bitcoin Cash transactions are verified, and new blocks are incorporated into the blockchain. Miners employ computational power and electricity to solve intricate puzzles. By doing so, they are able to create new blocks of transactions. When one of their blocks is sanctioned by the network, the miner, or mining pool, receives a block reward in the form of newly-minted Bitcoin Cash. Mining is highly competitive. As the market price of Bitcoin Cash increases, more miners are motivated to contribute additional hash rate to the continually intensifying competition among miners to generate and validate blocks on the Bitcoin Cash network. An increased number of miners enhances blockchain security by distributing the hash rate more widely. This decentralization prevents any single miner from gaining control over the network.

If you are interested in purchasing BCH at the current rate, the leading cryptocurrency exchanges for trading in BCH are Binance, Coinbase, KuCoin, Kraken, among others. Wish to monitor BCH prices in real-time? Download the Eulerpool mobile app to access live prices of BCH, BTC, and other cryptocurrencies.